Automating Your Home

Everything You Need to Know from Calgary’s Home Automation Experts

Home automation is all about making your family’s daily routine as easy and seamless as possible.

What’s the best way to set up automation systems in your home?

As one of Calgary’s experts on home automation, we’ve put together the following guide to help you get started. Check out these tips for choosing the right home automation system for you and your family.

What is home automation?

Home automation involves connecting different systems in your home so that you can turn appliances on or off at preset times, lock or unlock your doors, and monitor your home remotely. Home automation relies on the Internet of Things (IoT), in which devices and systems communicate with each other through wireless Internet.

The possibilities are endless for home automation. You can do everything from turning on your slow cooker and checking on your newborn through your phone, to unlocking your front door for a repair person or automatically turning down the thermostat during the day.

What are the benefits of home automation?

Save time: Many routine tasks in your day can add up to a surprising amount of time. Automating common chores, like turning on the slow cooker at a preset time for dinner, helps you save valuable time and set up a seamless daily routine.

Save money: Turning off all of the lights and turning down the heat while you’re out can add up to hundreds of dollars saved every year.

Improve home security: Nothing’s more important than knowing that your family and home are safe. Home automation means that you can relock a door remotely if you think you might have left it unlocked or check your home’s video surveillance if something just doesn’t seem right.

Monitor usage: How much phantom power drain are those appliances costing you? Many home automation systems offer excellent options to monitor your home’s energy usage in detail, so you can spot the systems that don’t work efficiently and make the necessary changes to optimize your usage.

Reduce energy use: Spotted some inefficiencies in your home’s systems? Home automation lets you turn off appliances or turn down the heat while you’re out, helping you reduce your home’s environmental footprint and conserve energy.

What should you automate in your home?

You want home automation that is easy to use and makes sense for your daily habits. The best home automation system is the one that you barely notice because it is so well integrated into your life.

So what does your daily routine look like? What are the tasks that you do at least once a day around the house? Make a list of these frequent activities—they’re the items that you’ll want to include when you set up your perfect home automation system.

Some of the most common items to automate include:

Lights

Alarm clocks

Thermostats

Blinds

Pet feeders

Appliances such as coffee makers, slow cookers, and washing machines

Garage door openers set to unique voice command

Is home automation secure?

Home automation makes your home more secure than a traditional home without automation. An up?to?date home security system with automated video surveillance and keyless locks is a strong deterrent for burglars, as they are far more likely to target a home where they can pick a manual lock and there isn’t a risk of them being caught on camera.

Furthermore, home automation does not make you vulnerable to hackers if you set up a secure Wi?Fi system. This often involves taking a few simple precautions, such as using passwords that aren’t easy to guess, keeping all software and firmware up?to?date and enabling a lockdown after multiple incorrect password attempts.

Do you need a professional home automation company?

There are a variety of DIY home automation products on the market, although most require some level of technical expertise from homeowners to install the product correctly into their home’s heating, lighting, security, and Internet systems.

If you want a worry?free home automation system, it is best to go with a professional home automation company like Frontline Security, with a strong track record and proven experience in both IT and Home Security.

A good home automation company will work with you closely to determine which systems to automate in your home so that everything works seamlessly and securely as part of your daily routine. Some home automation companies can also provide security system installation and monitoring, helping you run your home efficiently and keeping it safe.

Now that you’ve learned about the benefits and process for home automation, it’s time to get started!